#kotlc character analysis

[bookwyrminspiration]

Dex's initial response to the Song twins has always bothered me. I understand how Sophie reaching out to them shows her different background and the mindset she brings, but Dex is the son of a bad match, his father is talentless, and his siblings are triplets.

While Tam wouldn't have trusted Dex enough to take him along for that first real introduction, his later defense of ability discrimination (Neverseen pg. 432) and his silence when Sophie's trying to arrange something for them (pg. 458-459) feels out of character. Like it's ignoring that in favor of making Sophie look extra special and different.

I'm not opposed, of course, to exploring how Sophie's upbringing changes how she interacts with the elven world. I think it's critical to explore. I just think lumping Dex in with Biana, Fitz, and Keefe in this instance downplays how his upbringing changes how he interacts with the elven world. He's not the same as Sophie, but he's not the same as them, either.

I think he should've stood by Sophie in defense of them--Tam's ability, helping how they could. We can make Sophie's human upbringing stand out without sidelining the negative experiences of those from the elven world to do so

[unbridled-fuckery]

ive said this once and i will say it again, grady is the most nuanced character in KOTLC. Purely from just how he is written in canon- there is so much we can draw from his character with little inference.

On the one hand, you have a walking tragedy: he manifested one of the rarest and most dangerous abilities in the lost cities at a young age, he lost his daughter to her fiance, (if we're talking theory, he may have been in the neverseen), you can't help but feel sympathy for him.

But then- you realize something terrifying.

Gisela and Vespera are right.

Grady is the most ruthless elf in the lost cities.

But he's also one of the kindest.

Despite the danger it poses, he and Edaline adopt the Moonlark, they put themselves at risk. Despite everything been through, they willingly give their love to a girl who needs it. That is one of the kindest acts someone can pull off.

However, as alluded to earlier, there's another side to him. Despite how concerned, kind, and thoughtful he is; he is also vengeful, impulsive, and distrusting.

Let's look at Everblaze again. Partially because it's the best example of his darker nature, partially because I have it on hand right now, partially because it is my favorite book in the series.

In Everblaze, Grady's vengeance and impulse is seen in full. Take King DImitar, for an example. Sophie was going to be taken away; and Grady jumped in. He believed it to be the right thing to do; and believe me it was, but there is a dark tone to it. A feeling of impulse; that he wasn't truly thinking at the moment. And he almost violated the treaty, if it wasn't for the Councillors coming to his defense.

This scene serves as subtle foreshadowing for later and sets up something very important about Grady:

He could kill someone if he wanted to. And he knows that.

But what could push him that far? Well, there is an answer to that, an answer we later find out:

Jolie's death.

When he finds out the true circumstances to Jolie's untimely demise, his sheer ruthlessness is demonstrated. There's a deeper level to this however, it is his underlying fear of being taken advantage of showing to its surface.

Brant took advantage of Grady and Edaline, and that is the biggest injustice to Grady. Because it's what he has been fearing, it's why he had closed himself off to the world.

That fear causes the sheer level of terror that is caused in Grady. Terror that builds into his impulses, which causes him to go out to find Brant, with intent to kill.

That's why he doesn't want Sophie to come with, he doesn't want his daughter to see the monster he was about to become.

The monster he believes himself to be.

It's not just Everblaze, but a feeling that permeates his character and his choices.

His distrust of Keefe stems from two things:

The similarities he sees between himself and Keefe (the sense of humor, the blond hair, and later in the books; the ability of control).

How that, in a way, is all Grady has ever known.

Elves manifest young. Meaning that he has spent a majority of his life being distrusted by his peers, as well as distrusting the world and fearing someone would take advantage of him.

So when there's a talented but terrified young kid that needs his helps; whether through adoption or through training, he obligies.

Why?

Because he sees himself so much in that situation. Because of that deep feeling of kinship, he feels a need to take care of people in that situation.

Grady's empathy trumps his distrust.

And that's why he starts helping Keefe. That's why he adopts Sophie.

tl;dr: grady's character absolutely FUCKS why does no one talk about this???

also he is hotter than hell and i will fight people on this

[bookwyrminspiration]

I'd love to! I think you bring up a great point about how totally she's affected by her self-doubt. That's actually a distinction I'd make, doubting vs oblivious; everyone calls Sophie oblivious, but she has, on multiple occasions, shown she does notice how others behave around her.

In Nightfall during the awkward Dex scene, she admits that "she's spent so long pretending not to notice" (p. 262, emphasis mine). And when Fitz confesses to Sophie, she reflects that "those really had been moments. She hadn't been misreading the situation. She'd just been too scared to believe it" (p. 660).

Sophie is an incredibly perceptive character, as noted by Della and others. She notices, but her confidence is low and she's lost in this world, it makes more sense to her that she's misreading things. And then she doesn't have to deal with it.

But to focus on her specifically, we see her to this day praising her friends over herself, emphasizing their grace, attractiveness, etc. in a way that shows she sees herself as lesser. Which is in addition to the moments you've highlighted.

She's been in an an incredibly high-stress environment for a while now, her and her friends/family's lives in danger with threats needing immediate attention. There's no time to truly think of herself or change the perception created by those several years isolated hearing the worst of herself in everyone's thoughts. So that may contribute to why it's not talked about a lot; it's background noise in Sophie's life, just the way things are (to her), it's not something to address or reflect on. It's just life. She's not well liked and is weird and unattractive. that's how it is. why focus on that fact (fact to her) when there's a murderer on the loose who doesn't like her and her specifically?

Why it's not talked about in fandom is another question, but my guess would be her "obliviousness" supersedes that generally, and the two are so linked her self-esteem issues don't get brought up as their own separate thing? but that's just a guess. it's also entirely possible that it's been talked to death and so it goes without saying when talking about her because there's nothing more to say. which is also just a guess

anyway, I'll stop there, but that's an ecclectic collection of some of my thoughts on the topic--though I'd be happy to go further in depth :)

In the kotlc fandom and within the books there's a lot of joking about how oblivious Sophie is. Which is true, obviously in the books she's constantly missing signs that Keefe and Fitz like her.

Nobody seems to acknowledge that a lot of the reasons Sophie is so oblivious are because she doesn't believe she's worth having a crush on. Within the first few pages of the first book, when Fitz goes to talk to her, she immediately questions why such a cute boy would ever want to talk to her. The only thing she's confident in is her intelligence- and that's ripped away from her when she learns she's an elf and realizes she doesn't know how the world works at all. She only wears grey and tries to not stand out, and she overall doesn't think of herself very highly.

I haven't reread the series in a while, so I don't really have anything to say about the rest of book 1 through Nightfall. I can't remember anything specific to help my point, but I'll probably make another post about this when I've reread the series.

That brings me to Flashback. In the scene where Sophie and Fitz are in the reception hall at Everglen, they're discussing match lists, and Sophie thinks about the odds of her ending up on Fitz's lists. And even after all this time in the elven world, she still thinks of herself as "the weird girl with the freaky brown eyes who grew up with humans and will never fully fit into her world." By this point, she has five abilities, a lot of friends, and she knows how important she is to the world. But she still has low self-esteem. She almost starts crying in this scene because she feels so ridiculous for ever thinking Fitz could like her.

Sophie had no friends before moving to the lost cities. she grew up constantly hearing everyone's negative thoughts about her, including her teachers, classmates, and family. That'd fuck anyone up.

There's also a lot to say about how she's still an anomaly in the lost cities. But I haven't read the series in a really long time.

To sum it all up I really think Sophie's lack of confidence isn't talked about a lot, when it probably should be? It's an interesting aspect to her and I just had to say something about it.

[sophies-earbuds]

thinking about how alvar wore an addler the first time sophie saw him, distorting his face and blurring him so she couldn't see anything like a person

and ten years later, the neverseen blurred his face again, cutting and boring into his skin to steal away his features and render him nearly unrecognizable.

[everliving-everblaze]

While this really doesn't matter, I disagree with the idea that any dead character "haunts" KotLC's narrative. I think that KotLC's narrative is haunted far more by its living characters than its dead ones. In a story where most characters should have died long ago, is it most haunting that these few have died—or that everyone else has lived?

[thefanboyhub]

My laundry is on the floor right now and I decided right now was a good time to do some digging into one of the most interesting characters in KOTLC.

It's time to dissect Fitzroy Avery Vacker!

So we all know Mr. Ritz Cracker,

Mr. "We're Cognate's!"

Mr. Golden boy

Mr. You-get-the-damn-point!

Fitz was the Elf who found Sophie in the Forbidden Cities. He was the one who introduced her to his— their— world. He was the first person to see Sophie cry, first person in the Lost Cities to support her.

From reading the books we learn a lot about how Fitz grew up, and you might be saying "uh... no?" BUT HA! YOU FOOL! You cannot just simply read the words, you must read behind the meaning and watch a characters behavior to learn how they grew to be who they are! (It's why I love characters so much, there's so many ways to learn about them)

From context clues and how he behaved in the books we know he was the golden child. First kid to manifest at the tender age of 13, and lose his leaping bracelet early too, not to mention he was a telepath and was basically flawless in school. He took pride in it, like most kids do. But you see here, that's the problem. He never had someone to take him down his pedestal that his parents practically built for him (fucking Alden). He grew up being told he'd do great things, that he was a strong Elf, that he was better then anyone else. So naturally he started to believe it and act like it. He wasn't necessarily vicious either, but he didn't need to be; he always got what he wanted anyways.

I think he felt alone. I mean he reacted so viciously towards his brother Alvar after finding out he was a traitor— UNDERSTANDABLY SO BY THE WAY! But my confusion with this was how angry he was. But I thought about it a lot through my rereading of the series and I realized that he was so angry because he had loved, trusted, looked up to, and felt inferior to his older brother. Despite— No— Because he was treated so much better by Alden(bitch) and Della(ILoveYouWifey) Alvar gained resentment for his siblings, mostly Fitz.

There was a part of Fitz sports thing in book 8.5 KOTLC Unlocked where he talked about playing with Alvar. He said it's no fun playing base quest (I think) with him because he'd stay invisible the entire time. What this tells me is Alvar agreed to play the game but would dip out of his own jealousy and pettiness. Which takes me to my previous statement—

Fitz felt alone. The one thing he never got was a brother who actually liked and loved him. The one thing he had been patiently waiting for and hoping for since he was younger and treated like the golden boy was his older brother. But he never got it, instead he got a traitorous older brother who hated him so deeply he'd hurt his friends without a second thought.

In my opinion, Fitz's rage over his brother is reasonable. It's honestly so real and raw that I can't even say he's being idiotic. Especially considering what I just said.

BUT

His fatal flaw his his anger— or more technical — His tantrums.

Like I said before, he always got what he wanted, he was spoiled and treated like a little prince. So every single time he didn't get what he wanted, his anger would rise. His emotional intelligence has been stumped because he never had someone say no to him or been rejected for something. So he's confused and angry; "Why not!? This never happens to ME!" Type of mentality.

This also comes along with jealousy and the need to compete with others. So when Keefe started to show his affections for Sophie a lot more openly back in book 4 KOTLC Neverseen, specifically when they ended up in Alluveterre for protection that was provided by the black swan, he started to act jealous. He realized how Keefe felt and noticed something about how Sophie acted and he automatically felt the need to compete which is why in book 9 KOTLC Stellerluna he has Sophie on a pedestal like a prise in his subconscious. He doesn't see her like a lover or a crush, he sees her as a prise to win over, subconsciously though. Consciously he thinks it's a crush. He went from thinking of her as a sister to someone he wanted to date; that doesn't happen for no reason.

Moving on from the relationship drama aspect of this, we can talk about his outbursts when something goes wrong. He needs someone to blame. Always. And it's never himself. He needs someone to push all this fear and anger out on because he's not emotionally or mentally equipped to deal with it. It's a self-destructive flaw he posseses. Same with his jealousy.

Which is why I love his character! He actually has some pretty bad flaws! But he also recognized it and is attempting to fix it; what he doesn't realize is that it will take time and whatever he broke will most likely never be fixed again. Simple as that. It's sad and will probably hurt him a lot but I will help him grow.

In conclusion: Kill Alden and get Fitz into therapy :D

[dawnlotus1]

hello I have one question. did you also discover the concept of homophobia in a wc amino group chat at age 10? /silly

(Sorry late response!!)

Omg… Amino.. what a time…..

For me it didn’t yield in my first interaction w homophobia (I am so sorry for you man what’s the story behind that? 😭)

But it did yield my first experience with F A N D O M figure discourse….

As in, I remember seeing all these featured posts about how such-and-such curator, or such-and-such mod was problematic and offended someone and there was fighting in a chat somewhere and now their role is getting revoked yada yada and changes are being made and I was just sitting there. 10 yr old on my tablet. Being like “woah huh well that’s way over my head - anyway anyone wanna buy awful adoptables?”

Honestly it was the only Amino I was on that had “inner issues” to at least such a visable degree but it wasn’t long before I learned this was not unique to.. fandom (esp larger ones) in general. LMAO

[lucyshypemaster]

it's really a missed opportunity how we have never gotten the story from biana's pov. the closest we ever had to that was fitz's short story and even then, that wasn't much.

we all knew that biana definitely struggled with the scars vespera gave her and how she overcame it in legacy. but the thing is, I wanted to read the ways she'd overcome it, how she wanted to cover her skin because all vackers are supposed to be beautiful. how was is it like, living in a world where scars weren't normal?

in legacy, some of the characters had to overcome the king's path in order to meet king enki and one of those characters was biana. I'm confident to say that I bet the hallucinations she experienced was what vespera did to her + the whispers she had gotten in school.

all I'm saying is, I wanted to see biana overcoming her scars and trauma step by step. she's biana vacker, a girl who takes care of her looks above anything else as we can see in the first few books. having sophie noticing that she always covered herself in flashback and suddenly jumping to her showing her skin freely in legacy doesn't...sound like good writing to me, idk. again, I know the entire series is from sophie's pov but...my point still stands. I mean, we've literally gotten keefe's povs💀.

what made her realize that those scars are beautiful? what made her realize that she shouldn't feel obligated to cover those scars? what made her realize that she should 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 be ashamed of those scars because it's a part of her now? who helped her grow?

[castleofravens]

staring at the 20 kotlc fanart and fanfic wips piling up on my devices

[bookwyrminspiration]

if i may ask, who the fuck is fitz vacker?

This is a delightful ask to receive as someone known for being vocally unwell about and obsessed with Fitz

For those new/following for other things, a fair chunk of my blog is dedicated to the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger, a middle grade sparkly elf dystopia series that crawled into my head when I was 12 and still holds me hostage. I've literally been called a walking kotlc encyclopedia on multiple occasions

One of the main characters is Fitzroy Avery Vacker (official art linked), a teenage telepath from the secret elven world's most prominent (but not royal, that's not a thing) family. He's known for having teal eyes and the MCs undying ardor, which she conceals not at all.

He's the golden boy--top of his class, incredibly rare ability (the telepathy), charming, handsome, prestigious family, the works. But! He's also been sent on illegal missions to the human world by his father since childhood, looking for the MC.

Throughout the series he's drawn further into rebellion, following the MC as she uncovers the dirt under the shine of their "utopia." But even amongst friends, that Wonderboy status continues, creating this tension between the prestige he's been showered and burdened with his whole life and its slow unraveling. What worth does being golden have if the whole system's rigged? But how can he let go of all he's ever been?

And how the hell do you process that? He's got an incredibly strong sense of justice, values trust above all else--and his world and the people close to him are breaking it. How can he do anything but lash out, desperate to recenter himself?

To the point the Golden Boy, who bakes for his friends and has a sparkly red stuffed dragon he can't sleep without, nearly kills his traitorous brother with a knife to the throat. To the point when his traitorous brother is trapped behind glass, suffocating liquid pouring in from Fitz's frantic smashing at the control panel, Fitz deliberately steps away. Because he knows one of the buttons probably opens a drain, and he's choosing to let him die by his doing. Even though it wasn't on purpose. even though elves cannot abide violence, and risk shattering their sanity even witnessing it

GOD I love him. he's everything everyone else wants to be, he's deeply jealous and constantly fighting it, he's sweet and thoughtful, he's full of a rage so profound he can't think straight, he's putting his life on the line to better the world, he can't quite let go of what he thought it was, he's everything 2 me.

[ohmygoly]

i HAVE FINALLY READ IT, WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG. Okay so I literally don't have an invitation from ao3 for an account yet but since reblogs help this fic get seen (by what audience, idk, but still lol) I don't mind just reblogging all my comments. I just made a ton of "annotations" as you will through out so yeah. But I'm actually giggling. Not even my school crush could make me smile so bad. Like my goodness. Anyways, commentary, right:

Honestly, if you've listened to the song Here by Alessia Cara, that's how I see Stina. Definitely not a party girl, prefers to be with close friends at one of their houses. But she'd definitely be downing the booze to get through it lol. I fele you portrayed this well, cause she's clearly tense around most of the other people. As the queen should be.

I love love love Marella and Stina's banter lol! The shortest and the tallest in the friend group, definitely makes for some awesome brutal insults.

The background Marellinh tension too is killing me I love it lol. And I love the Linh characterization. Cute and sweet, sure, but not a child and definitely not a cinnamon roll! Of course Stina loves his smile teeeheee (AHH THEY KISSED. To live in a time with Chappell Roan to spur this beautiful moment on)

Seeing them dancing together just reminds me I want a Stinitz scene set when Fitz dances with Sandor in the silver pants and Stina finds it possibly more unbearably attractive than any smile, cake, or cute little formal bow he does.

Awww I want to cry. Maruca drifting until she finally finds her one person, and Marella alone and scared of connection until Stina finally helps her realize she is worthy, no matter who abandoned her.

Linh and Tam finding solace in the friend group after a life of abandonment from their family. I swear, they consider the rest of the horse girls their adopted siblings lol. Or they were forcefully adopted by Stina haha

That moment when everything is more significant when its a couple you love. I know the crinkly smile is a trope lol but seeing Stina comment on the happy wrinkles on his face versus the perfect smile makes my heart melt. I'm so biased lol, I'll never take this ship objectively ever, they'll never be not perfect to me.

And those are the cutest nicknames ever lol. I noticed in the books that besides Keefe, Stina's really the only one who consistently uses nicknames, so of course she'd be immediately on board with calling him pastry boy. Its perfect. And sweet tart is so ironic cause Stina doesn't appear sweet but like its perfect for her when you look at her close relationships. And its just cute haha.

Meant those words as a friend PLEASE. She sounds like Adrien Agreste!

"She's just having fun grinding up against Fitz" "What, am I wrong?" Maruca being a challenging pestering best friend is completely necessary. Call her out Maruca, Stina needs it. Love that Tam just takes it in and joins in on the teasing, perfect characterization.

As someone who's been called "The dumbest smart person I know" Sophie is so real ngl

LOL NOT THE BETS ON LINH'S LOVE LIFE

OMG OMG OMG THEY'RE GONNA SAY IT SOON. I NEED THEM TO GET BACK TO HIS PLACE NOW. THE LOOK HE GAVE HER AND HE WAS SUCH A GENTLEMAN OPENING THE CAR DOOR AHHHCKK.

All of your fics just have such a specific vibe that I feel whenever I read them. Its so human, so real, in a very unique way. Not just cause their human AUs lol, but they're just very easy to connect to and they're relatable and well written, and you obviously have your own style, that just makes it all feel so immersive and physical. I love it!

Not the subtle Tiana mention. I love that so much. I literally don't know how you managed to make this my dream fic but I think you're like psychic or something. So sorry, I would have a lot more comments on the actually Stinitz confession but I was too busy reading and giggling and gasping to find any comments besides "AAAHHH". I love that it contained a mild spat before they finally just kissed each other in their high emotional state. Jeezz omg Imma be giggling so much for like the rest of the week, I literally almost killed my phone battery cause I just had to finish this. This is beautiful. This is everything. I'm in awe that this is a work of art that exists now and what art it is. You have done it. Imma probably download this oneshot to go in my personal gallery ummm twas beautiful. Imma just repeat words if I go on so thats the end of my commentary LOL.

Last thing, I think I felt more emotional investment in this than the past four KotLC books together ngl. Love them but I love this. Also way more in my age range, which probably helps 😂. Please never stop writing ♡

DAY 5 STINITZ - PROMPT DRUNK

@ohmygoly BESTIE IVE GOT YOUR STINITZ!!!!

[teenagegirl-forever]

intro post!!

hi (hopefully) kotlc tumblr i have no clue how tumblr works tbh 😭 (do people do intro posts normally???)

but anyway hello, i’m jessie, i write fics and make art sometimes (teenagegirlforever on ao3 if u feel like checking them out? - i have one actor au and one fedex soulmate au out)

here’s some info about me regarding kotlc:

big big big fitz defender i will defend that boy with my LIFE

also massive fan of fedex (love them so much )

i read the series in… 2021 i think? i’ve reread it a bunch of times but on my most recent reread i’m only up to unlocked rn (have read stellarlune once but with very little understanding of what was going on, and i haven’t read unravelled yet)

also in 2021 i had an instagram and a youtube dedicated to kotlc which i will happily take to the grave no one needs to see that again LMAO

that’s mostly it i think?? i’m very big on character analysis, will yap anyone’s ear off about fitz and dex’s characters 🫶

thank you for reading!!! hopefully this reaches the right audience or that is SO embarrassing for me 😭

(p.s. if ur on the kotlc wiki fandom, i’m @jessica the gemini on there 🤞)

[amandayetagain]

Use the tag queer kotlc ren! Drop by my askbox with a blackout for a queer kotlc scholar sticker <3

Rec post: a post with a few of your favorite fanworks for the row!

Annotate or analyze: annotate scenes with your thoughts or analyze interactions.

Music: do you have the perfect song for a character/ship/meta? Do you love making playlists or doing lyrical analysis? This one’s for you.

Reblog or comment: reblog a related post on tumblr or comment on a related fanwork on ao3. Both, even!

Before canon: could be anything from transitions to queer adult lore/ships

Get a better poker face: closeted, comphet, ace, aro, and it’s glaringly obvious to those with the eyes to see

Only we know: miscellaneous headcanons

[gay-otlc]

Approximate KOTLC dates! Mild Unraveled spoilers ahead regarding Keefe + human pop culture, nothing plot relevant.

Given Keefe's fashion choices in Unraveled, we know it takes place some time after October 2022. And thanks to Quil's incredible timeline mapping out (roughly) how long the events of each book take, we know Unraveled takes place around 2 years and 4 or 5 months after the start of the series. Without taking any other canon details into account, that puts the earliest possible start of the series in June-ish 2020.

However! I am choosing to take other canon details into account.

Book 1 starts a few weeks after Garwin Chang receives his rejection letter from Yale. Based on Yale's admissions schedule and some character analysis of Garwin (he 100% applied early action), the first book starts sometime in December or early January.

So at the earliest, KOTLC begins in December 2020 or January 2021.

In Neverseen, when Sophie learns about the way elves count age, she's 13 years and 8 months in human years. This happens about a year and 3 months into the series, so probably somewhere around March, maybe early April. Sophie's birthday would likely be some time around late June or July, then.

We don't know when exactly Unraveled is happening- it's definitely after 2022, but it could be 2023, it could be 2024, it could be 2037 for all we know. At the earliest, it's 2023, probably around May or June (I haven't actually read the book so I have no idea if this is contradicted by the weather or anything).

Assuming the December 2020/January 2021 start date, Sophie was born in the summer of 2008. Her elf birthday would be September or October 2007.

That's all (for now I'm definitely going to do more with this later) thanks for reading my nerd shit :)

[sillyguy-supreme]

i’ve noticed an influx of new fans, so i thought i’d put together a list of resources on fandom racism and racism within the writing of kotlc, as well as accounts who talk about it regularly :)

from @cogaytes:

fandom woobification of tam song

the song twins & keepblr characterization

tam song’s outfits and stereotypes

from @soryasongsaa:

on tam song in fandom and the submissive/effeminate asian stereotype

on linh song and the china doll/fragile asian girl stereotype

tam song, gender, and western bias

the weird stereotypes of the song twins (this is technically a joint post with @cogaytes but i wanted to get both of their reblogs on this matter)

an analysis on the official art of the song family

other users:

fandom treatment of characters of color (from @toxtt-kotlc)

why do people headcanon white characters as poc? (from @bookwyrminspiration) (note: while this does reference old discourse from 2023, it’s also the best explanation i could find.)

@shangri-la-rights has compiled a lot of excellent posts on racism within the writing of the series itself, although xe hasn’t been active in quite some time.

these resources are meant to educate new users, so if i missed any posts or accounts, feel free to add on in the notes :)

[thefanboyhub]

NO NO YOU'RE RIGHT HOLYFUCKYESSSS

You're not crazy and you're so fucking right— ALSO love the art it's so yummy let me Inject it into my soul pls ty bbg.

Bronte is a version of darkness, inflicting pain and other negative emotions/feelings/sensations/whatever the fuck is a type of darkness: which is why we typically associate those kind of things with villains. But the smart bitches know that pain doesn't always mean suffering, it can mean growth. Suffering doesn't always mean pain, sometimes it just means an unfortunate circumstance. YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT? HOW DARK THINGS CAN STILL BE GOOD AND SOOTHING AND SHIT???

Now let's look at Fintan. Fire. It's light, it's pure, it's strong. Things associated with heros. But fire can consume, can destroy, can kill. It is uncontrollable. It's bright, flashy, near impossible to hide it. DO YOU SEE THE THINGS IM THROWING AT YOUR FACE RN.

BRONTE IS DARKNESS THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD

FINTAN IS THE BRIGHTNESS THATS BAD IN THE WORLD

Ty for coming to my Ted talk.

their abilities are kind of just fucked up versions of light and darkness if you think about it. obviously not in the traditional sense because the darkness is entirely internal and the light destroys everything it touches. but whatever. i’m normal about this.